Re: Writing large [x,x,x,x] files

[Martin Schultz <martin.schultz(at)dkrz.de>]

Craig Markwardt wrote:
> 
> [...]
> I'll chime in.
> 
> Astronomy folks use FITS for data exchange, but other people can too.
> I know that a lot of people complain that FITS is archaic but it's
> pretty effective, [...]

Oh let me advocate GRIB, a format commonly used by meteorological
agencies (and established as standard by the WMO). It's archaic, it
has a complicated user interface, but it is effective in packing data.
And, most wonderful of all: if you would go for it, we would finally
get a nice interface to read and write GRIB files from IDL ;-) 
[without call_external, i.e.]

Cheers,

Don't-take-me-serious-Martin

PS: The fact that there are no GRIB utilities available in any library
that I know of shows that not too many met people are using IDL. Or is
everyone happy with the wgrib solution??

-- 
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
[[ Dr. Martin Schultz   Max-Planck-Institut fuer Meteorologie    [[
[[                      Bundesstr. 55, 20146 Hamburg             [[
[[                      phone: +49 40 41173-308                  [[
[[                      fax:   +49 40 41173-298                  [[
[[ martin.schultz@dkrz.de                                        [[
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[